HD 197 
1841 
Copy 1 



SPEECH 



HD 197 
1841 
Copy 1 



;S"7S}5~~ 



/"Vt, 



MR. WM. COST JOHNSON, OF MARYLAND, 



OX THE BILL TO APPROPRIATE THE PROCEEDS OF 



THE SALES OF THE PUBLIC LANDS. 



AND TO GRANT 



PRE-EMPTION EIGHTS. 



Delivered in the House of Representatives oi'the United States, June 25 and 29, 1841. 




WASHINGTON : 

PRINTED AT THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER OFFICE. 
1841. 



SPEECH. 



Mr. WM. COST JOHNSON proceeded to address the committee in explana- 
tion and support of the bill. 

He said it was not his purpose to trespass long on the time of the committee. If 
he had consulted his own convenience, he should have submitted the bill on its own 
merits, without saying a word in its favor. He was well convinced that, at this day, 
but little new could be said on the general subject. The bill, though varying from 
any before submitted, embraced questions which had been subjects of discussion 
from the foundation of the Government down to the present time. He yielded,, 
however, to what custom seemed to have rendered a matter of necessity, in mak- 
ing a few remarks in relation to the merits of the bill. He was induced to do so, 
first, because the committee had forborne to accompany it with any report, think- 
ing, with him, that the measure was one which would bespeak the considerate at- 
tention of the House in its favor, and being persuaded that all the members of the 
House were already so familiar with the merits of the subject that no arguments of 
the committee were likely to change the opinions of man}', if any, of this commit- 
tee. It seemed, however, almost a political impossibility that any measure, how 
obvious soever its propriety, could pass the ordeal of a Committee of the Whole on 
the state of the Union, or of the House itself, without more or less discussion. He 
was, therefore, compelled to yield to what might almost be denominated the man- 
date of public opinion here, and trespass for a few moments on the kind indulgence 
of the committee. 

The question was one of such vast national moment, of such deep concern to the 
People of the whole Union, he might seem remiss, should he fail to present, in as 
few words as possible, some of the reasons which induced the committee to intro- 
duce the bill. 

To go into a history of the^mblic lands would occupy the time of the committee 
beyond the limit of its patient endurance. To go into a minute examination of the 
question, in all its aspects, would be a task of no small labor. From this he should 
refrain, as he had on a former occasion spoken at large on the subject, and because 
he knew that he was addressing on this floor the intelligence of the committee, 
most if not all of whom had devoted much anxious and patient study to the whole 
subject, and who understood it quite as well, if not better, than the humble mem- 
ber who now addressed them. 

The public lands had constituted a fruitful subject of discussion from the founda- 
tion of the Government to the present time. Indeed, ever since the date of our 
earliest struggle with the mother country, these lands, and the proper disposition of 
them, had been discussed — in the first Congress, in the Convention which formed 
the Constitution, in the Conventions which formed the State Constitutions, and in 
the State Legislatures, so as to render the subject familiar to the whole body of the 
nation. It had been, he would not say a vexed, but certainly a compound ques- 
tion, interwoven with our National and State policy, and the whole genius and spirit 
of our institutions. 

From the very inception of the Government, from the date of our confederated 
alliance as a Union, the disposition of the public domain had been viewed as a sub- 
ject of paramount consideration. One of the greatest difficulties to the formation 
of the Union itself was to be found in the fact that many of the States out of which 
it was to be formed claimed as their own the vast unimproved territory which had 



before formed what was then familiarly known as the " Crown lands ;"' while others 
resisted that claim on the ground that the Crown lands had been wrested from the 
possession of the British Government by the united effort of all the States, and that 
they should therefore inure to the benefit of our entire People, and to that of each 
State in particular, according to the " federal numbers" of its population, and its 
portion of the common burden and expenditure for the benefit of the general al- 
liance. 

Mr. J. said he would not trespass on the patience of the committee by a particu- 
lar reference to the acts of cession, or to the charters of the States, further than to 
say that the Congress of the United States regarded the cessions by the other States 
as not on so broad a basis as those made by Virginia and Georgia, who, with a 
magnanimous generosity peculiar to themselves, surrendered their own claims and 
ceded the entire domain to which those claims referred, to become the public pro- 
perty of the whole Union. The lands were ceded to the General Government as 
trustee for all the States of the Confederacy, to be applied to the benefit of the 
whole. Mr. J. should not pause to dwell on the stern refusal by Delaware, New 
Jersey, and Maryland, to join the other confederated States, though in the darkest 
and most perilous hours of the great national conflict, because the other States 
claimed the whole of these public lands, and to unite with them would be to join 
States whose population, wealth, and power, were such as must soon absorb every 
thing to themselves, and place these smaller and weaker communities as between 
the upper and the nether millstone. Maryland, during three of the darkest years of the 
Revolutionary war, had on this ground refused to confederate with her sister States. 
Her argument had been, that if, even in the midst of such a conflict, those other 
States could insist on such a claim as they advanced to the entire body of the pub- 
lic lands, much more might they be expected to adhere to it in the hour of final vic- 
tory, and that they must, in the end, crush and break down the smaller States that 
should unite with them under the admission of such a claim. This argument had 
areat influence with the old Congress, and still more with the larger States them- 
selves ; and so deeply did they feel its equity, that they actually surrendered their 
entire claim to the Crown lands, reserving to themselves only a fair proportional 
participation in the proceeds of their sales, in common with all the other members of 
the Confederacy. 

Mr. J. said he might here trace down the history of these remonstrances by the 
smaller States, and show the various acts of their State Legislatures in regard to 
those lands. Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey had all recorded their solemn 
protest against the exclusive claim of the larger States at the time they formed their 
State Constitutions. The same doctrine might be traced down through all their 
legislation to the present clay, and show by recorded evidence that these States all 
claimed that the public lands were a common fund, to be divided for the benefit of 
all the States, each in its due proportion. But he should not do it; he would rather 
reserve to himself the opportunity of doing so hereafter should the course of the debate 
render it necessary and proper, when he should claim the indulgence of the com- 
mittee for half an hour or an hour for that purpose. He should for the present as- 
sume that the whole history of the public lands proved that they had ever been re- 
garded as a common fund, to inure to the benefit of all the States. On this point 
lie did not anticipate any strong opposition. He would trace this demand down to 
the period of the formation of the Federal Constitution, and, that point being set- 
tled, he should then proceed to the residue of the question, both as it respected the 
principle and the expediency of the distribution proposed by this bill. 

He now came down to the period of the Constitution, and invited the attention 
of the committee to this position, that the framers of the Constitution never had 
viewed the public lands as a fund provided to carry on the operations and supply 
the wants of the Government. If this position should once be conceded, he should 
then claim that it would be a violation, not only of the Constitution, but of the 



whole essence and spirit and genius of our Government, to devote the public do- 
main to that use. 

But before he dwelt on this essential point in his argument, Mr. J. said he would 
first give a rapid history of the efforts which had, at various times, been made to di- 
vide and dispose of the proceeds of the public lands. 

Mr. J, had said, in the beginning, that the committee claimed no originali- 
ty in the preparation of this bill. If he had stopped to trace the history of the 
past, he could have shown that the States of Delaware, New Jersey, and Mary- 
land had ever claimed a fair proportion in the proceeds of the sales of these lands. 
He could refer, on the pages of their legislative history, to resolution after res- 
olution, and report upon report, without going further up than the period when 
Maryland adopted her Constitution. She had sent forth that Constitution to the 
world, accompanied with an address unequalled in its ability and eloquence ; in 
which her claim to a share in the public domain is expressly insisted on. Mem- 
ber after member from the delegations of these States, had, in Congress, urged 
the same demand. In 1821, Mr. Maxcy had made a report, containing an argu- 
ment of unanswerable force and clearness. In 1823, Mr. White, and in 1826, 
Mr. Dickerson, of New Jersey, had advanced and defended the same doctrine. 
He could refer to twenty others. There was, however, in the case of Mr. Dick- 
erson, this peculiarity: that he not only insisted on the right of all the States 
to a distribution of the proceeds of the public lands, but also to a distribu- 
tion of the surplus revenue in the Treasury. The sinking fund had not then 
paid the whole of the public debt ; but Mr. D. had foreseen that it shortly 
must effect that desirable object, and he therefore proposed that the surplus com- 
ing into the Treasury should be divided among the States, to be applied to pur- 
poses of education and of internal improvement. The argument of Mr. Dickerson 
had been answered thus : by the act creating the sinking fund, the public lands are 
constituted a part of that fund ; if you abstract the public lands, you violate the 
wise law recommended by the prudence and foresight of General Hamilton, and 
destroy the value of that fund. But that fund had now long ceased to exist. Mr. 
J. said he had referred to these things merely for the purpose of more fully sustain- 
ing the position he had taken, and showing that the object of the bill was strictly 
in accordance with the history of the past. He came back, then, to his position 
that the public domain had never been intended or expected to be a source of na- 
tional revenue, or a means by which the Government should live — the aliment on 
which the Government of this vast nation should depend for its existence from day 
to day ; on the contrary, he claimed that, by the Constitution, the powers of the 
General Government were intended to be adequate to meet and to provide for all 
the wants of that Government, without calling upon the States for a single particle 
of what was theirs. The States, in framing a General Government over the whole 
Confederacy, conceded to it the power to levy taxes on foreign imports and inter- 
nal commerce, which they denied to themselves. It was argued in the Convention 
that, by conferring this power on the General Government, it would be rendered 
adequate to provide for all its own wants and liabilities, and would render the coun- 
try powerful, independent, and happy. The argument triumphed, although it had 
been opposed by the ablest minds in the country. Of these, Mr. J. would refer t» 
but one, and he had made, in his own State Legislature, the ablest speech that 
ever was made against the adoption of the Federal Constitution— it was Luther 
Martin, of Maryland. This gentleman had voted against the Constitution in the 
Convention, and on his return had defended that vote before his own citizens, on 
the express ground that the new Constitution went to render the Federal Govern- 
ment independent of the States, and placed them in an inferior and subservient 
condition ; in fact, mere dependencies of that Government. Yet his argument, 
able as it was, and urged with an overpowering eloquence, had no effect to prevent 
the adoption of the Constitution ; it had comparatively but little weight in the coun- 



6 

cils of Maryland ; the Constitution was adopted, and the State surrendered her re- 
venue and all her right to regulate foreign and domestic commerce to the General 
Government, thereby arming that Government with power to meet every emergen- 
cy and provide for its own continuance. But he would not dwell on this point. 
He looked at the Constitution as it stood, and there he found the power to lay taxes, 
duties, and imposts; while the Staces had no resource to meet their necessities but 
that of direct taxation within their -own limits. 

The General Goverment, having been established by the States, was omnipotent 
over commerce ; but if the States had refused to adopt the Constitution, how great 
would -have been the power derived to many of them from this source ! New York 
collected, now, nearly one-third of the revenues of the whole Union. How many 
such canals and railroads as she had made or was now constructing might she then 
have created at pleasure ! Her revenue from commerce would have built up such 
an empire as could scarce have been competed with by all the other States united. 
Boston could have done something of the same kind, though on a lesser scale ; and 
Philadelphia, instead of being burdened, as now, with a load of internal taxes, and 
coming here claiming a pitiful share in the Western lands, would have been the 
emporium of the whole West, and the mistress of the Atlantic. And then to come 
to his own Maryland ; had she retained tiie power of taxing commerce, how would 
she have spurned the thought of asking the aid of this Government for her great 
works of internal communication ! Those taxes would have made her independ- 
ent of all external aid. She might have tapped the valley of the Mississippi, and 
poured a full tide of the wealth of the West upon her great Atlantic cities, and among 
all her enterprising population. Had Richmond and Norfolk the ownership of the 
duties on foreign and domestic commerce, with what lofty pride would they have 
scorned the thought of coming and asking of this Government, to whom they had 
given an empire, to do the act of justice, equity, and sound policy which was pro- 
posed to be effected by the present bill ! And might not the same be said with 
equal truth of South Carolina and Georgia? What an immense power had the 
States thus surrendered up to the General Government for the general welfare ! 
True, that Government might, from timidity or some narrow views of policy, re- 
fuse to exercise the power ; but the power itself was omnipotent ; it was a high, 
transcendental attribute of sovereignty ; figures could not estimate it. And, after 
the States had thus forborne to retain a power that would have been to them like 
the touch of the enchanter, filling their coffers with gold at will, ought the General 
Government, to whom they confided the formidable trust, to forbear to exercise it 
for the supply of its own wants, and prefer to prey like a vampyre on the property 
of the States which had created it? Had little Rhode Island, that star of the 
ocean, refused to join the confederacy of States, and reserved her own inherent 
sovereign power to regulate commerce, what might not, at this day, have been the 
amount of her wealth and influence? She might have vied with New York itself, 
and even surpassed it in opulence. All this she had given up — given it up to this 
Government — not to be neglected, but to be used for the public good of the whole. 

Could it ever have been designed, by the framers of the Constitution, that such a 
power as this was to lie dormant — to remain inert ? Was it ever anticipated, by those 
enlightened and high-souled men, that an American Congress, either from nervous 
timidity or from some political dread, would be meanly fearful of exercising a pow- 
er so great, but salutary, and, to shelter themselves from a just and manly respon- 
sibility, would resort to ravaging the resources of the individual States? would live 
by withholding from them that which is their own? Could any one of those vene- 
rable fathers of the Republic conceive that the National Legislature would throw 
open the ports of the country to the wines and the brandies of Europe, admit them 
duty free, and supply the place of the duties they ought to have levied, by turning 
round upon the virgin soil, that was the just property and inheritance of the States ? 
Did either the letter or the spirit and genius of the Constitution ever look to such a 



result? If this question was answered in the negative, then all would be conceded 
that Mr. J. asked for to secure the votes of the committee for the bill upon their 
table. 

Mr. J. kuew the objections that migiit be expected to arise in the course of the 
discussion. There were but few of them he should be disposed to reply to. One ob- 
jection would, doubtless, be, that the public domain had been dedicated to national 
purposes ; that the statute books proclaimed this every where ; and therefore the 
legislation of Congress must be made to conform to them. The bill would be de- 
nounced as an innovation ; and the community would have many a solemn warning 
to be cautious how they disturbed what was now the established usage of this Gov- 
ernment. But Mr. J. would appeal to the history of the past. He would abstain 
from opening the book and quoting chapter after chapter, and section after section, 
because he addressed an audience who were well informed in the history of their coun- 
try : but if the necessity should be forced upon him, he should ask an hour to sup- 
port himself by record evidence. Gentlemen would cry out innovation, but there was 
no novelty in it. They would say it went to violate the settled policy of the Govern- 
ment ; that it was the introduction of a new era in our political history; and that 
it was inviting the States to prodigality. Now this was an objection Mr. J. 
would answer at once, and the answer would at the same time be a reply to anoth- 
er objection ; and this would be killing two birds with one stone. The other ob- 
jection was, that the distribution proposed by the bill would occasion an increase of 
the revenue. Before he touched this question, he would lay it down as a cardinal 
fundamental principle, an axiom that was interwoven with our Constitution, laws, 
policy, and legislative duty ; and it was this : Congress is bound to exercise the power 
confided to it for the support of the General Government in all its wants, necessi- 
ties, and requirements. Measure j'our wants — ascertain whether they are ten mil- 
lions or twenty millions — and when the amount was known, then they were bound, 
as trustees for the People, to exercise the rights and attributes which had been entrust- 
ed to their hands. Who would deny this] Mr. J. was not to be alarmed by forced 
arguments. He assumed positions here without regard to the bearings they might 
have toward the North, the South, the East, or the West. He said that the posi- 
tion he had assumed in regard to the bill inferred no argument in favor of protec- 
tive duties. But he did go for duties for revenue ; and he contended that the meas- 
ure of this revenue was to be found in the wants, the moderate and legitimate wants, 
of the Government. He asked every gentleman who heard him, came he from the 
North or the West, the East or the South, or from the centre, whether he could 
deny or attempt to controvert that principle ? Well, that was Mr. J.'s position ; on 
that he was willing to rest the fate of this bill. 

But to come back to the point from which he had wandered. It would no doubt 
be gravely urged that, if the House shall pass this bill, it will be a departure from 
the fixed policy of t3ie Government. The proceeds of the sales of the public lands 
never yet had been distributed among the States ; and now, after having travelled 
in one road for fifty years, we were to strike out into a new path. It was to this 
point he claimed the attention of the committee. It would be said ihat, according 
to all the past .history and the laws of this Government, the public lands had been 
held as a public fund, belonging to the Government, and merged in its aggre- 
gate revenue, to be applied to its general purposes and wants. Mr. J. admitted 
the fact, but he did not concede the conclusion which gentlemen would attempt to 
draw from it. What were the facts of the case? Let gentlemen turn back their 
recollection to our early history. When the revolutionary war had terminated in 
the independence of the Union, the Congress of the United States assembled, be- 
ing clothed by the Constitution with all the hi"!) attributes of national sovereignty. 
What was its first act and its first duty 1 Did it adopt the wretched policy of oppress- 
ing and harrassing the States which were then in debt, as some gentlemen were dis- 
posed now to do, simply for the reason that the States are in debt 1 No ; it was 



8 

foreign from their purpose. Let gentlemen read the documents; let them refer to 
that immortal report of the Secretary of the Treasury in 1790. It was not then 
held to be the national policy to suffer the power to raise and collect a revenue to lie 
dormant and useless in the hands of Congress. It was not then held patriotic or dem- 
ocratic to oppress and embarrass the State Governments. Congress looked kindly 
upon them. It regarded them with a paternal eye. The General Government re- 
solved to assume the debts of the States, and to use the public lands as a fund to li- 
quidate those debts. 

And now let not gentlemen on either side of the House say, because Mr. J. sta- 
ted and commended this conduct on the part of the first Congress, that therefore he 
was in favor of a like assumption at the present time. He protested against any 
such inference ; he had no such purpose. His purpose was simply to show that the 
Government did then assume the State debts ; and that the public domain, by con- 
sent of the States, went into a genernl fund, to liquidate their debts. Mr. J. would 
not now read even an extract from the elaborate arguments which had been brought 
forward by the able financiers of that day, but he found that Congress came to this 
result. They assumed in behalf of New Hampshire a debt of $300,000 ; of Mas- 
sachusetts, $4,000,000 ; of Rhode Island, $200,000 ; of New York, $2,200,000 ; 
of New Jersev, $800,000 ; of Pennsylvania, $2,200,000 ; of Delaware, $200,000 ; 
of Maryland, "$800,000; of Virginia,' $3,500,000; of North Carolina, $2,400,000; 
of South Carolina, $4,000,000 ; (do gentlemen hear? Four millions for South 
Carolina !) of Georgia, $300,000. Now, what had been done with the public lands 1 
They were pledged to pay this debt. South Carolina had come up supplicating the 
Government to pay her debt of four millions ; while Maryland, who was not then 
considered as possessing much political power, however times might since have 
changed, (for she had as many Representatives then on the floor of Congress as 
New York,) had received but eight hundred thousand ; and yet, from the heights of 
Abraham to the swamps of the Pedee, the blood of Maryland was found mingling 
with every rivulet, and deeply staining every battle-field. But where was she now ? 
that Maryland, who, in the darkest hours of the Revolution, had stood forth as the 
champion of the public lands and of the public liberty 1 Deceived and betrayed ; 
told by the General Government to enlarge the width and increase the depth of her 
great canal, and make it a highway for the national ordnance, and the General Gov- 
ernment would liberally aid in its completion ; and, when she had done it, reproach- 
ed with her own embarrassment and deserted by the Government. She asked no 
more now than she had asked fifty years ago. She had claimed then her own fair 
proportion of the public, domain, and she claimed it still. Would this Government 
tell her that it was afraid to raise a revenue by laying a tax on French wines and 
French silks, while France was exacting duties at the rate of a thousand per cent, 
on her tobacco'? Would this Government answer her, " Go crucify your citizens 
with tax upon tax, drain them of their last dollar, and, if that will not do, let ^our 
State be sold by the sheriff"?" 

Would gentlemen tell him that Maryland must stand still and let this General Gov- 
ernment prey upon her substance, and fatten the wine-growers of France by receiv- 
ing into our ports seventy millions of dollars' worth of goods duty free, while her 
own people were oppressed and ruined ? Mr. J. warned gentlemen to reflect well 
before they placed such States as Maryland and Pennsylvania in a position like this. 
He would admonish that the days of 1790 might come round again. But he would 
not press a topic like this ; he would say to gentlemen, give us our dues, and, that 
you may do so, exercise your own rights properly and manfully. To sport with the 
interests of powerful and sovereign States was the way to produce a reaction which 
all must lament to witness. There was a potential influence, he might say an om- 
nipotence, in public opinion. It overrode all metaphysics, and it would act in con- 
formity with the spirit and genius of our free Constitution. Mr. J. hoped never to 
see the ultimate position assumed. Young as he was in public life, and obscure 



9 

and inefficient as he migiit be on that floor, none had been more efficient in keeping 
off a question which lay in the rear of this, and which must, and which would, come 
up if the States were refused what they had a right to demand. At the date of the 
Constitution, the whole importations of the Union were hardly a tithe of the 
amount which now entered our ports duty free. Yet even then the Government 
was able to liquidate all the debts of the States, and still to grow and to flourish as 
no nation ever had grown and flourished, until she became the western giant — an 
asylum for the world, the terror of tyrants, and the wonder of every nation on the 
globe. And was Congress, at this day, to be scared at exacting less than it exacted 
then 1 Then it was required to pay the debts of all the States, principal and inte- 
rest. Now it was only asked to distribute the public lands, and the States would 
take care of all their own engagements. Was this a scare-crow to be placed 
before the House 1 Was this a thing to frighten a Government that was admitting 
into the country seventy-one millions worth of goods duty free 1 Because gentle- 
men asked the Government to distribute three millions a year among the States, 
were they to be told that they were oppressing and grinding down the People of the 
United States'? With a revenue of hardly seven millions, the Government had as- 
sumed the debts of all the States ; it had paid those debts ; it had paid off the whole 
debt of the Revolution ; it had paid off the debt of a second war; it had a popula- 
tion of seventeen millions, and free imports to the amount of seventy-one millions; 
and yet it was to be scared at the thought of distributing three millions among all the 
States ! Mr. J. could never believe that the South would be quite so skittish as all 
that. He knew that ingenuity would be taxed for arguments, and he knew the power 
of impassioned eloquence ; but still he thought that he could not so far have mista- 
ken this Congress as that they were to be alarmed out of their sobriety and self-pos- 
session by ghosts like these. 

Mr. J. (without concluding) here gave way to a motion that the committee rise. 

Which motion prevailing, the committee rose, reported progress, and obtained 
leave to sit again. 

Tuesday, June 29. 

Mr. W. C. Johnson, when the land bill agp.in came up to-day, resumed his re- 
marks in favor of the bill. 

He said that, when he was~arrested in his remarks on Friday last, he was endeav- 
oring to show that, according to the genius, the spirit, and the letter of the acts of 
cession, the public domain never was intended as a source of national revenue for 
the purpose of supporting and carrying on the wants and expenditures of the Gen- 
eral Government. How far he had succeeded in sustaining that position, it was for 
the committee to determine. He had, at least, convinced himself, and he could not 
change his opinion, unless some argument or evidence should be furnished to the 
committee such as he had not met with in his reading and investigation of this most 
important subject. He had then stated that, if that fact were conceded — if the po- 
sition which he had assumed was tenable, then the whole ground of opposition must 
be surrendered, and the question of expediency alone remained, whether, with the 
power delegated by the framers of the Constitution to the General Government, the 
public domain, or the proceeds of the sales of the public domain, should be divided 
among the States, or whether they should continue to remain a part of the public 
fund for the support of the General Government. 

Before he concluded, he would endeavor to offer an argument, which, he hoped, 
would demonstrate that the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, upon any ground 
of law, of principle, or of expediency, should not remain in the coffers of the nation 
for the purpose of being expended by the General Government. He had referred, 
by way of illustration, to the law of 1790, which assumed on the part of the Gen- 
eral Government the debts of the States. To illustrate this position, he could refer 



10 

to the language of the then Secretary of the Treasury — to that famous report of 
Mr. Hamilton in 1790; that convincing and strong argument which he then made 
in favor of assuming the State debts, upon the ground that the General Govern- 
ment, by the very language of the Constitution, did arrogate to itself supreme pow- 
er over the whole question of commerce ; that the States were stripped of that power, 
and, consequently, of the means of liquidating the immense debts which they crea- 
ted in the war of the Revolution. 

He, however, would not dwell longer on that point. Anticipating for a moment 
an argument which might be urged against this bill, that the revenues of our Na- 
tional Government were not now overflowing, he might respond by stating that they 
were not overflowing at the time of the assumption of the State debts by the Gen- 
eral Government, soon after the Revolutionary war. But, looking to the quarter 
from which such an objection might come, he would meet it by saying that, if we 
traced the history of the past to a later period, we should find that an eminent Sen- 
ator, (to whom he had referred when he last addressed the committee,) Mr. Dick- 
erson, of New Jersey, in 1826, long before the liquidation of the national debt, 
made a report in the Senate of the United States in favor of dividing the pro- 
ceeds, not of the public lands, but of dividing a portion of the proceeds of the rev- 
enue among the States, and for postponing for a time the liquidation of the national 
debt, (according to the law which created and established the sinking fund,) on the 
ground that the revenues of our Government, notwithstanding its heavy debt, were 
adequate not only to meet all the wants of the Treasury and to liquidate the national 
debt, but, at the same time, and pari passu, to divide five millions of dollars for a 
series of years among the States ; and, after a certain specified period of years, to 
divide the sum often millions of dollars among the several States. Upon that re- 
port the Senator made a speech with elaborate care, as his report had been the re- 
sult of great reflection and preparation ; and he (Mr. J.) would say that, whilst he 
would not even agree fully with the sentimenis of that speech, it was the ablest 
which that gentleman made in public life, and it was the speech which gave him the 
reputation that induced General Jackson to invite him into his cabinet and to be- 
come one of his cabinet advisers. 

[Mr. PrcKENs said that lie (Mr. Dickerson) was a protective tariff man.] 

Mr. Johnson. I will read from the report itself his arguments. Here they are : 

" As a large portion of this debt is payable to persons in Europe, to discharge it as fast as ovir 
means would permit would be to send from the country, sooner than necessary, funds that are 
wanted at home-; the inconvenience of which would be sensibly felt in the present embarrassed 
state of our moneyed market, and most probably for several years to come. 

"Money distributed as proposed would give new activity to industry and enterprise in all the 
States, and that equally and simultaneously. 

" It would create a vigilance on the part of the State Governments over the expenditures of the 
General Government, and thereby p'revent the waste of money and the adoption of extravagant 
measures that might diminish the amount of the annual dividends. 

'« It would secure impartial justice to all the States in the distribution of the expenditures of our 
revenue, a failure of which at present is a subject of loud and just complaint." 

"■ It would relieve the two Houses of Congress of a large portion of legislation now devoted to 
the disposal of our surplus funds — legislation of the worst kind, calculated to produce combina- 
tions, sectional feelings, injustice, and waste of the public treasure. 

"It would transfer to the States the regulation of the expenditures for internal improvements by 
roads and canals, which, if retained and exercised by the General Government, contrary, as is be- 
lieved by many, to the spirit and letter of our constitution, will, in time, so far decrease the pow- 
ers of the State Governments, and increase those of the United States Government, as to destroy 
the federative principle of our Union, and convert our system of confederated republics into a con- 
solidated Government. 



11 

"It would remove the cause of the great and increasing difficulties arising from an objection on 
constitutional grounds to the exercise of the right claimed on the part of the United States of ma- 
king roads and canals through the different States of the Union. 

*« It would enable the General Government to keep in operation an efficient system of finance 
and revenue with advantage to the States. And, should the exigencies of the country require the 
application of all our means to some object connected with our national peace and prosperity, those 
means could soon be brought into operation by suspending for a time the dividends to the States. 
By this, our Treasury would be filled without a sudden resort to new taxes, which might be op- 
pressive to agriculture, and which might create much inconvenience by interrupting the pursuits 
and industry of our citizens. 

"Money collected from the sources which now give us our revenues, and distributed among the 
States as proposed, would produce a rapid and profitable circulation of our funds from the centre 
to the extremities of the Union, and thus add to the force of the moneyed capital of the country ."" 

Here (Mr. J. continued) the strong State rights ground was taken, that, by giving 
to the States their own property, it would give them the power of creating and es- 
tablishing internal improvements themselves, thus relieving them from the annual, 
perpetual, unceasing calls upon the General Government to aid them in their great 
State works. That was the argument urged by Mr. Dickerson — that even the pub- 
Jic revenue from customs as well as from the public lands might be divided among 
the Stales, so that the States, in their independent and sovereign capacities, could 
carry on their works of internal improvement without imploring and beseeching the 
General Government to aid them in those laudable and essential undertakings. He 
(Mr. J.) might pursue the argument, read the report, and quote from the speech of 
this gentleman, but it was sufficient for him to know that, at that time, Mr. Dick- 
erson took grounds a thousand times broader than he (Mr. J.) was willing to 
take, and that he maintained those grounds with an ability rarely, if ever, sur- 
passed. 

But he (Mr. J.) might refer to still higher authority — higher, at least, to some gen- 
tlemen on this floor, if not to the gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. Pickens, 
who had put an inquiry to Mr. J. which the reporter could not hear.] He (Mr. J.) 
might refer to the message of General Jackson himself, who took distinct ground 
in favor of the distribution of the public revenue, and who, at that time, made an 
argument, convincing and converting to all his friends, and through the whole ex- 
panse of the nation. WouhHiot the history of the past give us some light in rela- 
tion to the present? And, he would ask, if gentlemen did not subscribe to all the 
broad and latitudinous doctrines of Mr. Dickerson and General Jackson, might they 
not, at least, narrow it down to something like a tangible, constitutional, legal, and 
equitable principle, and say they would not take these arguments in the aggregate., 
but that they would see if there was not a fund, in this great national exigency of 
ours, to be found somewhere, upon which the States might look with an anxious 
hope, and see if, by the use and appropriation of that fund, they might not relieve 
themselves, without embarrassing the General Government, from the debts — from 
the overshadowing gloom and misgivings which now oppress them "? For his own 
part, he wished it to be distinctly understood, by those who might honor him by reply- 
ing to his arguments, that he had not taken the broad and expansive ground assumed 
either by Mr. Dickerson, the favorite of General Jackson, nor by General Jackson 
himself, nor the ground urged by Mr. Hamilton in his report, and which Congress 
adopted in 1790, by the assumption of the State debts. He, (Mr. J.,) at this time, 
neither proposed the assumption of the debts of the States, nor the genera! distri- 
bution of the proceeds of the revenue from customs; but he stood here distinctly 
advocating the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, and that 
point alone. 

He had said, and he would now repeat, that, in the event of the General Gov- 
ernment failing to do justice to the States, there was a question which might stand 



12 

in the rear of this. If Congress, in its policy, should determine to throw in here all 
the productions of Europe free of duty — to make the States but so many tributaries 
to this General Government, and to absorb all their means of living — if Congress 
should consult the interests of the producers of Europe, disregarding the States and 
the People who constituted those States, there might be a reaction in public opin- 
ion. Public sentiment might lead to the inquiry whether the General Government, 
as a faithful trustee, not only to dispose of the proceeds of the. sales of the public 
lands, but as a trustee bound to execute and exercise all the high trusts which had 
been reposed in it — as a trustee bound to administer the Constitution of the United 
States to the several States — had discharged those various, responsible, and im- 
perative duties with fidelity — whether they had exercised their powers and their 
legitimate attributes for the benefit of our own or of a foreign country. It might 
become a matter of inquiry whether there was not a power in the States that 
might appear here and speak in a voice more potential than any that may now be 
heard in this Hall — that might require of them, whilst they fail to exercise the pow- 
ers they have, to exercise them in a higher degree than by the bill that is now be- 
fore you. He said this for the purpose of warning his friends every where who were 
opposed, as at this moment he himself was, to the assumption of State debts, wheth- 
er they had not better place the States in their true position, and the General Gov- 
ernment in its true constitutional position : thus benefiting both the General Gov- 
ernment and the States, and keeping oft' the other question that lay behind. That 
was his ground. He went for a distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the pub- 
lic lands. Reject that measure, and he, for one, should examine and reflect upon 
the genius of the Government and the power of the States, and on their rights, be- 
fore he took a step as to the future. He would never be found in favor of exer- 
cising the powers of the Constitution for purposes of neglect or oppression, or in 
disregard of the interests, the sentiments, and the feelings of the People of the 
States of this Confederacy. 

He came now to speak of the question of expediency. Leaving the constitutional 
question — leaving the arguments deducible from the history of the past, he came 
now to res 1 : this question upon a mere point of expediency. And he asked, now, if 
it was not expedient that the proceeds of the sales of the public lands should be di- 
vided among the States ? 

Before he went into that question, he would refer to an argument which might 
be made in opposition. It would be said, why do you wish to pass this bill when 
the revenues of the General Govergment are not equal to its wants ? Will you 
press such a measure when the chairman of your Committee of Ways and Means 
[Mr. Fillmore] has reported a bill authorizing a loan of twelve millions of dollars'? 
Will you urge the argument of expediency, and talk about dividing the proceeds of 
the sales of the public lands, when your Treasury is empty ? Will you urge distri- 
bution when you have nothing to distribute 1 Well, in response to that, he would 
ask members of the committee to take up the report of the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, to examine that document, and to see whether they had not materials enough 
upon which they could legislate, not only so as to meet the present and future lia- 
bilities of the nation, and to divide this fund, but to do so without embarrassing any 
portion of the Union. They might even go on and double the amount. They 
might even go as far as Mr. Dickerson and General Jackson. 

What were the facts? He found that Mr. Hamilton, in his first report, recom- 
mended to Congress to lay something like a duty of twenty- five per cent, on Ma- 
deira wine. According to the report of Mr. Gallatin, in 1809, more than a million 
of dollars were raised in this nation upon the article of wine alone. 

Looking at the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, we found that, from the 
year 1834 to the year 1840, the amount of articles impor'.ed into the United States 
duty free averaged seventy-five million seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand 
two hundred and twelve dollars. The amount paying duty was but sixty-nine mil- 



13 

lion seven hundred and forty-eight thousand four hundred and fifty-seven dollars. 
Thus, then, during this period of years, we received within our ports a larger 
amount of articles wholly exempt from duty than of those which paid duty. We 
found also, by the same report, that (in strict conformity with the compromise act J 
we might exempt from duty fourteen million three hundred thousand dollars' worth 
of articles ; and yet, upon the residue of those imported now free of duty, and 
conformably to the spirit of the compromise act, we might place a duty of twenty 
per cent, and thus increase the clear nett revenue to twenty-two million five 
hundred thousand dollars. He would say to gentlemen who opposed these argu- 
ments that they must meet them. They, as statesmen, were bound not to study 
how they could best suppress or reduce the revenue of the General Government, 
or how they could most studiously absorb it all, but they were bound so to exercise 
the high trust which had been confided to their hands as to provide for the wants 
and carry on the objects of the General Government, without oppressing the States. 
Here, then, were the articles; here was the materiel; here was the subject-matter 
on which their judgment, their wisdom, and their legislation could act, and act, as 
he maintained, without oppression to any interest whatsoever. 

Suppose that the revenue should be brought to but twenty-two million five hun- 
dred thousand dollars, according to the report of the Secretary. He asked gentle- 
men who had been with him here for the last eight or nine years, who had supported 
with zeal and ability the Administration which had just faded into obscurity, who 
had advocated and defended an Administration which had expended $28,000,000 
annualiy on an average, without giving the States one dollar, and which had ab- 
sorbed the public domain — he asked them if they would now complain when they 
were told that the whole amount of revenue required to meet the wants of the Gov- 
ernment was upwards of six millions less than the amount heretofore required ? 
The party in power were for bringing the Government down to twenty-two mil- 
lions of dollars, and, in doing that, they were to pay off a debt which the former 
Administration, in addition to absorbing all the surplus revenue which was found in 
the Treasury, had created. That Administration had created a national debt in 
the form of Treasury notes and outstanding debts to an amount (he could not speak 
precisely) certainly not less than twenty millions of dollars ; and yet the party now 
in power told them that they would pay off this debt without expending twenty- 
eight millions of dollars, (asjJie last Administration had done,) and that this could 
be done by dividing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, and without op- 
pressing the People of any portion of the Union. 

Gentlemen denied this, and exerted their ingenuity to disprove it : but though, in 
some of the opponents of this bill, all the faculties of nature had been cultivated to 
the highest degree, subtle and abstruse as gentlemen might be in their metaphysical 
powers, let them go tell the American People that this is a measure to oppress and 
injure them, because we are going to divide their own property among themselves, 
and see what success they would meet with. I expect, said Mr. J., that ingenuity 
and eloquence will do their utmost. I expect a rich treat in listening to all the able 
argument, the ingenuity, the force, the fire of imagination which will be arrayed 
against the bill; but after gentlemen have done their utmost to carry away the 
minds of the People and of those who represent them here by the torrent and headlong 
fury of their elocution, I shall recall them to the undeniable facts; I shall ask them 
to pause, and let their minds recover, and then I will invite them to look at figures 
and examine the cool results of calculation, and see, in truth and soberness, whether 
they can make it out oppression, that we are going to save six millions of the public 
expenditure — distribute the proceeds of the public lands — pay the current expenses 
of the Government, and liquidate besides the debts of a former Administration. Is 
this oppression 1 Can gentlemen make the People think it is? I will give them 
the basis, the materials of our calculation. I will point them to the seventy-one 
millions of dollars worth of foreign imports received duty free. I could refer them 



14 

were it proper to detain the committee by reading them, to report after report, from 
Secretary after Secretary, from the very beginning of the Government. I could 
recite act after act of successive Congresses, long, long before the proposition ot 
Mr. Dickerson ; long, long before the tariff of 1.828, or the tariff of '24 even. I 
could show them that, long before both these acts, this Government was able by its 
revenue pov/er alone to pay the national debt and the debts of the States by mil- 
lions and hundreds of millions, and yet grow as nation never grew before, and flou- 
rish as nation never flourished since the foundation of human society. And I now 
say that Congress need not impose such a rate of taxation as it has formerly im- 
posed, and yet will have enough of revenue to pay the debts bequeathed to it by the 
late Administration, and to divide the proceeds of the public lands besides. 

I will meet the question here — at once, I am not for supporting this Govern- 
ment upon the dry diet of Treasury notes. I reprobate that whole system. I am 
for none of these flimsy attempts at concealment. I am for telling the People openly 
and honestly that there is a national debt : for Treasury notes are nothing more or 
less than so much public debt. I cannot see what alarm this measure is calculated 
to create. I was astonished that the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Pickens] 
should have taken ground so resolutely against it, and I shall be yet more surprised 
if his constituents do not take the directly opposite ground. Coming down, then, 
to the question of expediency, I think I have shown that the bill ought to pass if 
it were on considerations of expediency alone. 

I might here, at this point of my argument, dwell a little upon the doctrine of 
State rights — a doctrine to which, above all other things, I am zealously devoted. I 
press this measure on the committee on the ground that it is a State rights measure ; 
without any metaphysics, it is palpably and plainly a measure which we are bound 
to carry into effect for the benefit of all the States. Say, is it politic, that is, wise, 
to absorb within the grasp of this great central mammoth Government all the re- 
sources of the States 1 to build up here in the midst of them a grand overpowering 
Republican monarchy'? Will you legislate with anxiety to destroy all State 
supremacy, to sap the vigor of the State power, and to build up a sovereign autho- 
rity, whose aim and work it shall be to injure and to oppress the States for the 
benefit of the wine growers and the silk producers of France ? The argument 
against the bill seems to be an argument the tendency of which is to double and 
treble the resources of this General Government by depressing those of the States, 
and to invite all the luxuries of Europe into the ports of the country free of duty. 
Such at least is and must be the inevitable consequence of the positions which are 
assumed. Here we are to have seventy-one millions of foreign products received 
duty free, when there are not seventy-one millions on deposite in all our banks, nor 
in circulation in the county ! Yet every year seventy-one millions are to go to 
Europe to build up the interests of foreign industry, while three million and half of 
dollars, rightfully belonging to the States, is every year to be absorbed in the wants 
and purposes of the national Treasury, still further to impoverish the States, and 
still further to build up the interests of foreign producers. 

Let me refer gentlemen to considerations which cannot but have weight in the 
mind of every man that loves his country. I am not, I repeat it, in favor of a pro- 
tective tariff; I go solely for a tariff for revenue. If this shall incidentally protect 
our own industry, so much the better. Now it is a fact that we send 98,320 hogs- 
heads of tobacco abroad every year. It is the produce of several of the States, 
chiefly of Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky ; and what does France do when it 
gets there? She lays the moderate duty of one dollar per pound upon every pound 
of it. In the mean time, what duty do yon impose upon her wines'? What did 
Hamilton recommend that you should impose? What did Gallatin advise? Do 
you raise, as once you did raise, a revenue of a million of dollars on the article of 
Madeira wine alone ? No. What revenue does France derive from the 10,346 
hogsheads of tobacco we send her ? And what do we receive from 10,346 pipes 



15 

of French wine ? I wish any gentleman would inform me. I should like !o hear. 
Will any gentleman tell me 1 I pause for a reply. There is a general silence. 
Will the honorable gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Pickens] be so good as 
to inform me 1 

[Mr. Pickens, speaking across. It comes free of duty.] 

Yes ; it comes, as the gentleman tells me, free of dut} 7 , or almost duty free. 
And what does France receive as duty on the 10,346 hogsheads of our tobacco? 

[Mr. Pickens. It is a mere stimulant, and poisonous.] 

Yes, they are both stimulants and both poisons. And France makes out of this 
stimulant a revenue of ten millions of dollars. Will the gentleman from South 
Carolina now go back to his people and tell them that we are ruining the people, op- 
pressing them, grinding them to the earth because we propose to lay a duty on 
these wines, and to give the People the produce of their own lands 1 Is it cruel 
oppression that we should lay, say, a duty of twenty per cent, on the wines of 
France, when France levies a duty of one thousand per cent, on our tabacco 1 
Does any gentleman here natter himself that he is going to get the People to say 
that this is an outrageous proceeding 1 I think he will find himself mistaken. 

Well, sir, and what does the gentleman's beloved England, with all her alleged 
pride and arrogance, what does she, in her lenity to the United States, exact 
upon these 98,320 hogsheads of our tobacco 1 She lays on a duty equal to 
a thousand per cent, and out of American tobacco entering her ports she raises 
an amount of eighteen millions of dollars every year, while we demand for the 
present administration of this Government but twenty-two millions, to be raised 
from the imported products of the whole world. I press this fact upon gen- 
tlemen. We ask Congress to raise but four millions more, for all the wants of the 
Treasury, than England raises on our tobacco alone. Do gentlemen pretend to tell 
me that a Congress is to be reprobated, and the members who compose it to be 
condemned, persecuted, and hunted down b}' the People, for this? It is a reflec- 
tion on the intelligence of the American People. 

In ten brief years we have paid to England alone — to say nothing of con- 
tinental Europe — but to England alone, we have paid eighty-five millions of 
dollars for the single article of iron. Is such a policy according to the genius 
of our Government'? Is it the true philosophy and the true policy of Ameri- 
can legislators to study how much they can by their legislation benefit the interests 
of France and England, andliow much they can at the same time injure our own 7 
I repeat it, I am opposed to a protective tariff; but I pray gentlemen not to class 
me with such legislators. Let us look at the fact. Europe levies a revenue of 
thirty millions of dollars on one hundred thousand hogsheads of American tobacco, 
which cost in the United States seven millions of dollars, and which are chiefly the 
product of three or some half dozen States. Thirty millions of dollars on this one 
isolated article of tobacco. Seven millions worth of tobacco brings to the Govern- 
ment of Europe thirty millions of dollars ; yet we do not ask you to raise thirty 
millions on all European products combined;. we only need twenty-two millions on 
the produce of the whole foreign world. He must, I repeat it, be a subtle reasoner 
who can make Americans believe, when their Government could pay the debts of the 
Revolution, State and National, and all the debt of a second war, and yet increase 
as it has, that the distribution of three millions of the proceeds of the public lands is 
going to ruin them. 

I have said thus much by way of illustration, (and I have found that the best 
way to illustrate is by analogy.) I have thus answered one chief argument which 
will be brought against the bill by anticipation. 

I come down now to examine for a moment the subject-matter of the bill. 

You will have to divide, in the progress of half a century or of a century, a 
thousand millions of acres of the public domain. And here I will anticipate 
another argument which I know will be urged on the other side. You may not di- 



16 

vide the proceeds of the public lands, because the expenses of the Government in 
the acquisition, surveying, and general administration of these lands, have not yet 
been reimbursed by the avails of the lands themselves. Let me refer gentlemen 
to the facts of the case. What are they'? The amount of expenses of sales, surveys, 
commissions, &c, to 30th September, 1840, was forty-seven millions six hundred 
and fifty-three thousand five hundred and twelve dollars, (47,653,512 ;) cost of ac- 
quisition, twenty-one millions six hundred and sixty-nine thousand five hundred and 
twenty-four dollars, (21,669,524;) making in all, sixty-nine millions three hundred 
and twenty-three thousand and thirty-six dollars, (69,323,036.) And the receipts 
to 30th September, 1840, are stated at one hundred twenty millions one hun- 
dred and forty-eight thousand and eighty-five dollars, (120,148,085 ;) to which 
may be added, 12,700,000 acres, granted to States for schools, roads, canals, &c, 
in value fifteen millions eight hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, (15,875,- 
000 ;) grants as bounties to the soldiers of the Revolutionary and late wars, 9,750,000 
acres, value twelve millions one hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars, 
(12,187,000;) donations to individuals, exclusive of private claims, to December, 
1831, and exclusive of grants to the deaf and dumb, 224,558 acres, value two hundred 
and eighty thousand six hundred and ninety-seven dollars, (280,697 ;) leaving 
seventy-nine millions one hundred and sixty-seven thousand seven hundred and 
forty-six dollars ($79,167,746) to the credit of the public lands. Averaging the 
value of the land at $1 50 an acre, (and most of it sold on credit at $2,) the amount 
granted in pay to the army is not less than twenty-five millions of dollars. Here is 
an argument from the record; an argument of figures, better than figures of rhetoric. 

But it will be said that even conceding that, according to the provisions in the 
acts of cession, there is law, equity, and justice in distributing among the States so 
much of the public domain as is covered by those acts of cession over which the 
General Government was by those acts appointed a trustee, yet how can you apply 
the same principle to that other large portion of the domain which was obtained, not 
by deeds of cession from the States, but by purchase from France and Spain? I 
reply, that the purchases of Louisiana and Florida never were designed by the 
Government as a source of revenue, any more than were the cessions by the States. 
No such object was in view in the purchase either of Florida or of Louisiana. 
Those purchases were made on high considerations of State policy : they were 
made because the General Government wisely thought that were the land itself as 
barren as the desert of Zahara, still, rather than leave it to lie in the hands of a for- 
eign Power, that might one day become a foreign enemy, for him to erect forts, im- 
pede the navigation, and make irruptions on our territory, it would be better to 
make a sacrifice of money and transfer it in fee simple to ourselves. Napoleon 
was then bestriding Europe like a Colossus, and his ambition sought to subjugate 
the world : it was important, particularly at a time like that, that we should hold 
the mouth of the Mississippi, though obtained at any price : and therefore the pur- 
chase was made. Mr. Jefferson, himself, admitted, at the time, that the act was a 
violation of the Constitution : but there was throughout the nation a pervading sense 
of the obvious policy of the measure: all high-minded, far-seeing, deep-thinking 
statesmen were convinced, with one accord, that the purchase ought to be made, if 
it could be effected : and it was concluded that the general expression of the na- 
tional will overrode, in this case, the letter of the Constitution, and formed a suffi- 
cient sanction for the purchase. 

But more: when these lands had thus been acquired, were they not at once 
thrown under the operation of our general land system'? Did not the same law ap- 
ply to them which applied to any other lands held by the Government'? The same 
donations were made out of them as out of others ; the whole mass was treated 
alike, as being kindred property. Thus I bring the entire policy of the Govern- 
ment as an argument to prove that they were identical with the rest of the public 
domain. They afford the same means of supporting the Government without injur- 



17 

ing any of the States or oppressing the People. I leave it to the better judgment 
of the committee to say whether there is any force in this objection. I am arguing 
now from considerations of expediency. Let me adduce one or two in addition to 
those I have already pressed. 

If gentlemen will look at the bill on your table, they will see that it contains a 
provision not only for distributing the proceeds of these lands at this time, but ex- 
tends that provision to the future, until Congress shall arrest the operation of the 
system, or until there shall arise a national war. Congress has complete jurisdic- 
tion over the whole plan ; they can suspend or modify it at pleasure. 

But there is one argument urged against the bill which, when duly examined, will 
be found to be one of the strongest that could be urged in its support. Gentlemen say 
to us in warning tones, " If you once divide the proceeds of these lands among the 
States, you will never get them back into the national coffers." Well ; I ask gen- 
tlemen if they have confidence in the legislation of the States? Have they any be- 
lief in the wisdom of the People ? And if they have, is not their own statement an 
admission that the States and the People will both approve this measure as wise ? 
That they will appreciate and give it their universal sanction ? So far from this 
being an argument against the bill, it is the strongest of all arguments in its favor. 
So far from discouraging me in pressing it upon the support and favor of the House, 
it urges me on ; it stimulates me to presevere. What greater encouragement could 
I desire than the assurance, even from the lips of an adversary, that the People of 
my State will hail such a law with joy ? And is mine the only State? Let gen- 
tlemen themselves be the judges. Is there a State in the Union which, when this 
boon is cast into her lap, will repudiate it and reject it? Can gentlemen point me 
to a State Legislature which will rise and say, " We reject the offer?" I venture 
to predict there will not be one in the limits of the whole Union. And that I con- 
sider one of the strongest arguments in favor of the measure. 

But I place it on another ground — that of high Stale rights. I do not mean by- 
State rights the doctrine that this Federal Government has no power, and that the 
State Governments have all power ; no such thing ; but I adopt the definition which 
was given by Chief Justice Marshall from the bench of the Supreme Court. I will 
not detain the committee to read the words ot that immortal jurist ; the substance 
of his idea is this : that theLpederal Government is supreme within the limits which 
the Constitution has prescribed as its proper sphere of action ; while, at the same 
time, the State Governments, within the range of those powers not delegated by 
themselves to the General Government, are in like manner supreme, so far as 
that range extends. But what do we now find in practice ? That this General 
Government is prone to absorb all power to itself. It has grown up as one vast 
over-towering fabric in the midst of the Republic, while the States stand round 
about it like so many out-offices and dependencies, hidden in its shadow. Look at 
the state and habits of the public mind in relation to it. Time was when the States 
of this Confederacy stood up side by side on a platform of equality and independ- 
ence, and this Federal Government felt itself to be a mere emanation of their will : 
but now it moves on with giant strides to empire, and the States shrink abashed 
from the assertion and the exercise of their high powers, until, if things proceed as 
they have been going for some years past, those State authorities will eventually be 
swallowed up in the vortex and maelstrom of Federal power. 

Look at the Executive Department, especially as it was in possession of the party 
just gone out of power ; see the mighty amount of force it wielded for weal or for 
wo; behold the almost omnipotence of the Executive hand, and the People bend- 
ing and nuckling before it ! 1 mean no disrespect to the existing President ; far 
from it ; but yet I say, look at the mighty power that can yet be wielded by one in 
his high place. And here I cannot but mention one fact that illustrates the real 
state of things. I went the other day to one of the Departments, and I was told 
that there were fifteen hundred applications upon file for places within the gift of that 
2 J 



18 

Department alone. I was struck with amazement at the proclivity of the public 
mind to centralization, and at the total amount of power and patronage which the 
Executive could wield and bring to bear in what direction he would. What is this 
formidable person] He was made by the Coustitution a mere administrator of the 
laws, to carry into effect the acts of the two Houses of the Legislature ; but now he 
is looked up to as the great administrator of public bounty. Congress, whose voice 
was once potential throughout the length and breadth of the land — Congress itself 
has caught the contagion. How many of its members, forgetting the dignity of their 
station, have bowed down to worship before the Executive shrine! 

And, then, there are your heads of Departments, men designed by the Con- 
stitution as mere clerks of the Executive — as subordinate officers : go now to 
their reception rooms, and see the veneration with which they are approached by an 
eager crowd of obsequious applicants, as if they were so many little monarchs. Each 
has his daily levee, and is surrounded by a bowing circle, who seek from his look 
their hopes of profit or preferment. Yet these men were originally but so many 
clerks of Congress ; mere orderly sergeants to execute the laws ; but now they have 
erected themselves each on his pedestal to receive the adoration of a suppliant 
crowd, and to wield over them the sceptre of their destiny. Who are they ? The 
mere breath of the nostrils of the President. I would not have these things so. But 
the construction which has been put upon the Constitution and the downward ten- 
dencies of all Governments have co-operated to bring it about. There they sit, 
each upon his throne, each nursing his own power, afraid to exercise their official 
powers for the good of the People, but to conform to the will of him who happens 
to fill the Executive chair. While I say these things, however, I have no personal 
aims or unkind feelings. I wish to sustain the present Executive in all just and 
proper measures he shall recommend. Yet I am no worshipper of power. 

What do we see 1 No sooner is one of these Secretaries, or any other individual 
in the country, named publicly as one likely one day to attain the height of the Ex- 
ecutive throne, and there to wield the sceptre of this vast amount of power, and 
straightway he is worshipped as an idol — none dares to contradict him : all seek to 
flatter and to court him. Is it not so 1 Do we not all know it and see it"? I speak 
of facts — as an American legislator should speak— as the worshipper of no man, and 
the slave o no man. I say this General Government grasps at power as urged by 
the natural inclination of the human mind ; it is nothing strange or wonderful ; it 
grows out of the very nature of Government. But I take my stand upon State 
rights ground, and say, now is the time, the auspicious time, to re-establish the 
rights and the influence of the States. I would have the States to possess and man- 
age their own money, and to make their own works of internal improvement, and 
not to come here like suppliants and beg this Government for the means of improv- 
ing their own rivers and making their own roads and canals. I would have the 
avails of the public lands flow into the coffers of the States, instead of the Treasury 
of this Government. I would have this Government pared down and stripped of 
all that influence it derives from its power over the public domain. It has long been 
a high game, and the race has seemed to be who shall squander the public resources 
the fastest. If you pass this bill, you will place the Western States as guardians to 
prevent this ; because it will then be their interest to see that the lands are properly 
husbanded, because the dilapidation of the fund will be the loss of the States. Now, 
it is often their gain. It will make this Government a mere agent for the States, 
and will place the States upon their own resources. Will not this be fair? Is it 
not just and equitable? How often have I heard the language reiterated on this 
floor, " if you do not stop this business of internal improvements by the General 
Government, you will destroy the Union. It is a system which does and must ope- 
rate unequally. The great States are powerful in the House through their numer- 
ous delegations, and the rest stand no chance in the scramble." I now say to gen- 
tlemen, here is a fair way of removing this objection ; here is a fair way to let the 



19 

States divide their own revenue : each State will get its own. Reject this bili, and 
you at once unite all the States who are desirous of carrying on internal improve- 
ments within their own limits ; you band them together in the strongest ties : seize 
the opportunity ; make a fair distribution, and equalize the operation of your land 
system by parcelling out the proceeds among all the States. 

What will be the consequence if you defeat this bill? Suppose the argument to 
prevail before this committee that there must be no increase of revenue, and no 
loan to pay the national debt, but that we are to have a new batch of Treasury 
notes ; are to absorb the revenue of the States from these lands, and try how much 
of foreign luxuries we can gel into the country duty free — suppose this, and what 
do gentlemen suppose will be the consequence upon the People ? The State Gov- 
ernments will be placed under the necessity of resorting to direct taxation ; the re- 
sources of the States will all be absorbed ; the balance of trade will be against you ; 
and when the banks shall resume specie payments, the very first importation will 
take all your specie out of the country. 

But if you impose a duty upon foreign luxuries, and divide the proceeds of the 
pub4k domain, who is it that will pay the twenty-two millions of revenue? Will 
it be the plain, hard-working mechanic? Will it be the frugal, industrious, inde- 
pendent tiller of the soil? A man that never saw a bottle of champagne or mares- 
chino in his house in all his days ? No; the duty will be paid by the rich and the lux- 
urious. The tax will make little practical difference in the consumption of luxuries. 
And why ? Because they are esteemed mainly because they are luxuries, and their 
use is supposed to mark a class in society, a grade in human condition. Bring 
down champagne to the price of hard cider, and those who now use it would repu- 
diate and scorn it. It is chiefly because the rich man looks on his champagne as a 
luxury that he spends his money to buy it. 1 will venture to say the consumption 
of wine will not be diminished by a duty of twenty per cent. Does a member of 
Congress drink poor Lisbon wine at seventy-five cents? Go ask them. No ; they 
apply to the dealer and get the best he has. It is a matter of pleasure and pride— 
it is a luxury to have the best wine, and to know that it is costly. This feeling will 
keep up the use of wines, and will send to your Treasury the needed revenue, while 
at the same time you divide the proceeds of the public lands. How will the two 
measures operate on the farmrT l The duly on wines will not affect him ; he drinks 
none, or next to none ; but the distribution of the price of the public lands will come 
home to him at once in his escape from direct taxation, and in the canal which car- 
ries his produce to market. He is freed from the necessity of paying a dollar to 
the General Government, while he reaps his full share of the revenue derived to 
his State. And so manifest is this to the People, that a bill far less advantageous 
than this passed the Senate by a large majority. But here is a bill that not only dis- 
tributes the avails of the lands, but secures a permanent pre-emption right to actual 
settlers. Will gentlemen vote against such a bill? Will they go back and tell the 
laboring man that they are anxious he shall support the expenditures of his own 
State Government and the General Government too, uhen he might have escaped 
both 1 For one, I would rather let the rich buy their costly wines. The bon vi- 
vcuit may pop his three bottles a day if he likes ; as a legislator I have no objec- 
tion ; let him pay his twenty cents duty upon it, and relieve the farmer and the 
laborer from his taxes. That is my doctrine ! That is what I call democracy. I 
was brought up in the democratic school ; not the school of this new-fangled democ- 
racy that makes a king of a President, and a unit of the Cabinet and the Congress 
both ; oh, no ! but of the old-fashioned Patrick Henry democracy, that makes each 
poor, honest man a peer of the realm ; that views and treats the Representative 
but as his servant. That is my doctrine. 

But reject this bill, and force the States to resort to direct taxation, and what will 
be the practical result? Will the tax fall upon the rich man alone? No ; a direct 
tax falls like mildew on every man's estate, and every man's property. Be he Whig 



20 

or be he Locofoco, it comes down on the property of every human being. Each 
man must pay the dues of Government— net. as 1 propose, of his own free will, as 
the man does who buys a bottle of wine, but by compulsion, under the rod of the 
the sheriff; and, even if he is in debt, it matters not ; his tangible property must 
meet the demands of the law. And, now, I say to gentlemen on all sides of me, if 
you force the American People to this, they will very soon force you to think upon 
the Constitution; and, if the result of yo'j.r meditation does not please them, they 
will speedily thereafter force you out of this Hall, and force other men into your seats. 
As sure as light falls from heaven, the American People will never hear of direct 
taxation in time of peace, while you refuse to put a picayune of duty upon a pipe 
of French wine. 

And now look at the operation of this bill upon the States, 1 do not say that of 
late 1 love the General Government less, but that my love for the States is in- 
creased. 

[Mr. Dawson, (playfully speaking across,) " especially when you shall be Gov- 
ernor of one, of them."] — (A laugh.) 

(Yes, especially then : and I reciprocate to the gentleman from Georgia very 
cordially his anticipations on that subject.) [Laughter ; and cries of " fair ;" " a 
fair hit."] 

There was a lime when the Governor of a State was the second man in the na- 
tion ; but things are changed. I find a mammoth power grown up in the heart of 
the Confederacy, which is fast swallowing up the States : and now I blush to see 
Governors of States coming here and suing to subaltern officers of this Government 
for subaltern offices under them ! Yes, the Governor of a State, with a wealthy 
territory exceeding the limits of England, coming and cringing for a miserable 
office to a miserable Secretary ! 

It is humiliating to see how the States are becoming merged in the rays of this great 
central sun of the system. I go for equalizing power in this Confederacy. I go (to 
use a favorite expression in the time of Bonaparte) for having the balance of power 
restored. I am for a General Government which shall rest self-poised on its own 
centre, and for having the States placed in a position where they can resist the 
great absorbing centralizing force of that Government. And what, 1 ask again, will 
be the effect of this bill upon the States ? The States that are now oppressed with 
debt will be enabled to meet their obligations — to pay the interest, redeem their 
credit, and press to completion their great plans of internal improvement. The 
State bonds and State credit which now stand so low, would advance in the scale 
of value, and a guaranty would at once be given at home and abroad that each State 
in the Union could meet promptly its liabilities. For, by this measure, a revenue, 
for years without number, and from a domain almost boundless, would be continu- 
ally flowing into the now empty coffers of the States. The farmer would see that 
he would be quickly relieved from taxation, by the rvenues from works of inter- 
nal improvement, united with the revenues from the sales of the public lands. New 
fields of production will be opened, new sources of manufacturing materials will he 
explored and rendered available, and thus the aggregate wealth and property of the 
nation will be augmented. And if there be States who do not desire to embark in 
any works of public improvement, they can apply their shares to the purposes of 
education, or to any other object of public utility which they deem more important 
than either. 

I might take up the subject of education simply, and press the bill on that ground 
alone. As the matter now stands, this Government has made donations of the pub- 
lic lands to some States for purposes of education, and not to others: there is no 
equality : 150,000 acres have been given for free schools, and for colleges over 
half a million. A nation's power arises more from mind than from mere matter : 
it is more intellectual than physical: the human mind, when fully developed, en- 
lightened, and combined in social organization, is as nearly omnipotent as any 



21 

thing created can be in this world. It wields at once moral, physical, and political 
power. It is therefore the duty of every legislator to further the interests of educa- 
tion to the utmost of his ability and opportunities. If any gentleman will look at 
the last census, he will there see the deplorable condition of education in some por- 
tions of our country. If any member shall rise and oppose this bill, I can turn his 
eyes upon a picture of this kind that will sicken his heart. If, then, the bill stood 
on that ground alone, it ought to pass with unanimous acclamation : for it supplies 
the means of conveying the light of knowledge to every domicil in the land : it will 
build a temple to knowledge in every neighborhood, wherein may be trained those 
future legislators who shall fill these halls. Look around on this floor, and see at 
this moment how many are here assembled who rose from a very humble origin, and 
whom nothing but the wand of education could have raised, and transformed, and 
honored with the power of making the laws of their country. It is not pedigree 
which, in this country, can raise a man to Parliament. It is mind, and the effect 
of knowledge upon mind, that lifts up men to the highest honors of this free and 
happy Republic. 

But I have exhausted the patience of this House, and I now return to gentlemen 
my cordial thanks for their courtesy and attention. I will now bring my remarks to 
a conclusion by expressing my anxious hope that, after a proper time has been al- 
lowed for discussion, we shall seize the earliest fitting opportunity to bring the de- 
bate to a close, and to take the bill out of committee. I am most willing to listen 
to gentlemen ; but I must really hope that the action of the House will be consum- 
mated within the present week. 

[After the bill had been discussed in Committee of the Whole for ten days, the 
committee rose and reported it to the House. Mr. J. obtained the floor and said, 
that ii had been his purpose to answer very fully the objections which had been 
made to the bill, and had taken very copious notes, but, at that very late hour of 
the night, and the decided tests which had just been given on the various amend- 
ments, he would abandon his purpose by forbearing to make the speech which he 
had intended, and believed that he would quite as well anticipate the feelings of the 
House by demanding the previous question on the final passage of the bill. 

It w*as ordered, and the bill passed. Ayes 116 ; .nays 108.] 



Note 1. 

Extract from the Journal 1st. session 22c? Congress, page 1076. July 3, 1832. 

The bill from the Senate (No. 179) entitled "An act to appropriate, for a limited time, the 
proceeds of the sales of the public lands of the United States, and for granting lands to certain 
States," was read the first and second time ; when 

A motion was made by Mr. Wilde that the further consideration of the said bill be postponed 
until the first Monday in December next. [To reject the bill.] 

A call of the House was then ordered; and, the roll being called, 177 members answered to 
their names. 

Further proceedings in the call were then dispensed with ; 

And the question was put on the motion made by Mr. Wilde, that the further consideration "of 
the said bill be postponed until the first Monday in December next. 

And was decided in the affirmative : Yeas 91, nays 88. 

The yeas and nays being desired by one-fifth of the members present, those who voted in the 
affirmative, are: Messrs. Mark Alexander, John Anderson, William S. Archer, William H. 
Ashley, John S. Barbour, Robert W. Barnwell, James Bates, Samuel Beardsley, John Bell, John 
T. Berger, Laughlin Bethune, James Blair, RatclifT Boone, Joseph Bouck, Thomas T. Bouldin, 
John Branch, John C. Brodhead, Churchill C. Cambreleng, John Carr, Thomas Chandler, Jo- 
seph W. Chirm, Nathaniel H. Claiborne, Clement C. Clay, Augustus S. Cl lyton, Richard Coke, 
jr., Lewis Condict, Henry W. Connor, Richard Coulter, Warren R. Davis, Charles Dayan, 
Ulysses F. Doubleday, William Drayton, John M. Felder, William Fitzgerald, James Ford, Tho- 
mas F. Foster, Nathan Gaither, John Gilmore, William F. Gordon, John K. Griffin, Thomas 
H. Hall, William Hall, Joseph M. Harper, Albert G. Hawes, Micajah T. Hawkins, Michael 



22 

Hoffman, Cornelius Holland, Henry Horn, Benjamin C. Howard, Henry Hubbard, Jacob C. 
Isacks, Leonard Jarvis, Daniel Jenifer, Cave Johnsnn, Edward Kavanagh, John King, Henry G. 
Lamer, Garret Y. Lansing, Joseph Lecompte, Dixon H. Lewis, Chittenden Lyon, Joel K. 
Mann, Samuel W. Mardis, John Y. Mason, Jonathan McCarty, George McDuffie, Rufus Mc- 
Intire, James McKay, Thomas R. Mitchell, Henry A. Muhlenberg, Daniel Newnan, William T. 
Nuckolls, John M. Patton, Job Pierson, Franklin E. Plummer, James K. Polk, Edward C. Reed, 
John J. Roane, Nathan Soule, Jesse Speight, James Standfer, Philander Stephens, Francis Tho- 
mas, Wiley Thompson, Gulian C. Verplank, Aaron Ward, James M. Wayne, John W. Weeks, 
Campbell P. White, Charles A. Wickliffe, and Richard H. Wilde. 

Those who voted in the negative, are : Messrs. John Q. Adams, Chilton Allan, Heman Allen, 
Robert Allison, Nathan Appleton, William Armstrong, Thomas D. Arnold, William Babcock, 
John Banks, Noyes Barber, Daniel L. Barringer, Gamaliel H. Barstow, Isaac C. Bates, John 
Blair, George N. Briggs, John C. Bucher, Henry A. Bullard, George Burd, Tristam Burges, 
Rufus Choate, John A. Collier, Silas Condit, Elewtheros Cooke, Bates Cooke, Richard M. 
Cooper, Thomas Corwin, Joseph H. Crane, Thomas H. Crawford, William Creighton, jr., Henry 
Daniel, John Davis, Henry A. S. Dearborn, Harmar Denny, Lewis Dewart, Philip Doddridge, 
William W. Ellsworth, George Evans, Horace Everett, James Findley, George Grennell, jr., 
James L. Hodges, William Heister, Thomas H. Hughes, Jabez W. Huntington, Peter Ihrie, jr., 
Ralph I. Ingersoll, William W. Irvin, Joseph G. Kendall, William Kennon, Adam King, Henry 
King, Humphrey H. Leavitt, Robert P. Letcher, Thomas A. Marshall, Lewis Maxwell, Robert 
McCoy, Thomas M. T. McKennan, Charles F. Mercer, John J. Milligan, Dutee J. Pearce, Na- 
thaniel Pitcher, David Potts, jr., James F. Randolph, John Reed, Erastus Root, William Russel, 
William B. Shepard, Augustine H. Sheppard, William Slade, Samuel A. Smith, Isaac South- 
ard, William Stanbury, Andrew Stewart, Joel B. Sutherland, John W. Taylor, Philemon Tho- 
mas, John Thomson, Christopher Tomkins, Joseph Vance, Samuel F. Vinton, George C. Wash- 
ington, John G. Watmough, Samuel J. Wilkin, Grattan H. Wheeler, Elisha Whittlesey, Lewi3 
Williams, and Ebenezer Young. 



Note 2. 



By the census of i830, it appears that, if the proceeds of the public lands had been divided 
agreeably to the land bill of 1832, each citizen of the State of Maryland, above twenty years of 
age, would have been entitled to receive upwards of $20 ; or, what is the same thing, have been 
relieved from State taxation to that amount. A table is subjoined, showing the amount each 
county in the State would have been entitled to in the six years up to 30th September, 1838, and 
in that proportion for 1839 and for future years. 

Table, showing the aggregate benefit which each county in the State would have received from 
1832, from which period the law was to take effect, to 1838— six years. 

Alleghany, - $40,000 

Anne Arundel, ___--„-- 110,500 

Baltimore city, -------- 317,000 

Baltimore county, - ... - 158,500 

Calvert, - ... - 31,500 

Caroline, ------ 35,500 

Cecil, - - 59,500 

Charles, - 67,500 

Dorchester, - - - - 71,000 

Frederick, - ... 178,000 

Hartford, - - 64,000 

Kent, - - - 40,000 

Montgomery, ... - - 75,000 

Prince George's, - ... 78,000 

Queen Anne's, - - ... 59,000 

St. Mary's, - -.-..- 51,000 

Somerset, - - 79,000 

Talbot, ... - 48,000 

Washington, - - - - - 98,000 

Worcester, --------- 71,000 



$1,732,000 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



027 331 556 1 



